March 7, 2025: What’s wrong with a full-year CR and the path to passing one
We’re one week out from Congress’ deadline to pass a government funding bill and avoid a shutdown. I’ll run through where things stand below.
If you’d like more background on government shutdowns, check out FAQs about Government Shutdowns! If you want to understand how the shutdown fight differs from Republicans’ effort to move President Trump’s agenda through Congress, risking millions of Americans' access to Medicaid and food for kids to widen tax loopholes for billionaires and corporations, check out our February 28 update.
What’s the status on government funding?
Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 began more than five months ago on October 1, 2024. Nonetheless, Congress failed to adhere to the regular appropriations process and pass new government funding bills by the time the fiscal year ended. As a result, the government is operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that extended FY2024 spending levels. That CR expires on March 14.
While this isn’t how the process is supposed to work, this situation has become pretty standard. Since 2014, Congress has never finished all 12 appropriations bills on time in an election year—which, you’ll recall, 2024 was. In every election year for the past decade, Congress has had to extend its funding deadlines three or more times and, on average, finalized appropriations bills 4.5 months late.
So, in a way, they’re right on time!
How does the Republican majority plan to avert a shutdown?
Last week, President Trump endorsed kicking the can again and extending the current CR to the end of September—meaning, the government would operate under funding levels set for FY2024 for the rest of FY2025. Speaker Johnson aims to put a bill to do just that on the House floor for a vote “early next week” (that is, the week of March 9).
Politico has a rundown of the Senate dynamics here, and the House seems to pose more complications, so I’ll focus on them. Because despite the Trump/Johnson alignment on what we’ll call a “full-year CR” and the fact that Republicans don’t need Democrats’ votes to get this thing through the House, there are big hurdles on the path to House passage. More on that below.
What’s wrong with a full-year CR?
A full-year CR won’t deal with the country’s latest problems and gives President Trump and Elon Musk more openings to cause new ones.
An evergreen problem with CRs—especially long ones—is that they don’t fund the government in a way that meets current needs. They also leave out important resources called community project funding, or “earmarks.” A full-year CR would forgo funds for lead service line replacements in Michigan, expanding a food bank in Texas, building a tornado shelter in Minnesota, and thousands more similar community projects.
This year, there’s another problem: a full-year CR would give Trump and Musk even more latitude to run roughshod over the programs and services families depend on. Reporting from just the last couple days has revealed that DOGE is:
worsening wait times and disability claims reviews for Social Security;
leaving zero responders available to answer Veterans Crisis Line calls;
threatening longer waits for Americans’ tax refunds;
hindering efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in Uganda; and much more.
Without the checks a normal appropriations bill offers Congress, a full-year CR would mean more opportunities for Musk’s DOGE to jeopardize Americans’ health and wellbeing. House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro released a detailed fact sheet explaining the safeguards Congress would give up by passing a full-year CR, and Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray issued similar warnings.
So, what was that about hurdles to passing a full-year CR?
For all the reasons above, Democrats in Congress don’t want a full-year CR enacted. Bipartisan talks to finalize new FY2025 funding bills have continued, and reporting indicates a deal could be “imminent.” Does that mean a deal could be done before next Friday? Probably not. But an emerging agreement could eliminate the need for a CR that lasts more than a few days or weeks.
Now, again, House Republicans don’t need Democratic votes to get a CR of any length through the House. They control enough seats to pass one even if every Democrat votes no. However, several House Republicans have never voted for a CR, and getting those members onboard could come at a price. Reporting earlier this week suggested that if GOP leadership included any extra funding in a full-year CR, deficit hawks could demand even deeper cuts to the House-passed GOP budget resolution that tees up the fast-track approval of Trump’s legislative agenda.
You said a full-year CR would extend FY2024 spending levels, so why are you talking about extra funding?
I know, I’m sorry. Stay with me.
Trump said last week he wanted a “clean” CR, which typically means “the same”—that is, no changes from the funding measure currently in place. However, the White House also sent Congress a list of changes—often called “anomalies”—they’d want in that so-called clean CR. Some of these changes are costly, like an extra $485 million for ICE.
Will the White House convince enough deficit hawks to overlook those changes and drop their demands, given that it’s extra funding for GOP priorities? Reporting suggests they might. But if they don’t get enough Republican hardliners onboard and have to consider even harsher cuts to take Medicaid coverage and SNAP benefits from even more Americans, other GOP members could balk and threaten passage.
Long story short: it’s still not totally clear how next week will play out. We’ll keep you posted.
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